The Candy Bowl and the Cost of Approachability
On warmth, authority, and what it took to understand the difference
I used to keep a bowl of M&Ms on my desk at work.
Yes, because I like M&Ms.
And also because I liked being the approachable one. The warm one. The leader people felt comfortable stopping by to see. My door was always open. I remembered birthdays. I asked about people’s families. I made the office feel a little more human.
At the time, it felt like good leadership. And in some ways, it was.
What I didn’t understand — not for years — was how easily “approachable” can become your primary leadership identity. Especially as a woman.
Here’s what I’ve come to understand about how this works: women are often rewarded for being warm. Genuinely rewarded — with positive feedback, with people who say they love working for you, with a reputation as someone who creates psychological safety. Those things matter. They’re real.
And then we get evaluated primarily for that warmth.
Meanwhile, the men around us are evaluated for strategy. For vision. For results.
The warmth that made us effective becomes the thing that defines us — and eventually, limits us.
We become the approachable one. The supportive one. The one who holds the team together. Important work. Rarely the work that gets you to the next level.
The candy bowl wasn’t the issue. The positioning was.
It took me years to fully understand that I didn’t need to earn authority through constant accessibility. That being strategic and being warm weren’t in conflict. That my work already spoke for itself — and that my job wasn’t to make everyone comfortable with my authority, but to exercise it.
That shift doesn’t happen overnight. And it doesn’t happen by simply deciding to be different. It happens when you get clear on how you’re being perceived versus how you intend to lead — and when you have the support to close that gap deliberately, not just hope it closes on its own.
I’m curious: what’s something you used to do — or maybe still do — that felt small, but you later realized was shaping how others perceived your leadership?
I write about leadership, influence, and what it takes to lead at this level on LinkedIn.
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